Appalling Photos With My New Pro1 CPL. Is This To Be Expected?

EDIT: Unfortunately all my original image links are now broken. My photographs are now hosted at Flickr and on my website. Links to both of these sites are in my signature section.

Apologies for any broken image links that are now showing in any of my threads or posts.

Thanks,

Mike

Were you in Av mode? It could be down to camera shake. Remember that with a CPL you lose approximately 1.5 - 2 stops of light. Were you watching your shutter speeds?

Hello Martin. No, I was in manual mode, using a tripod and remote shutter release. I think the softness is just part of the overall terrible quality, for example the double edges on a lot of the brances.

I suppose I'll have to go back and take some more without the CPL fitted, just to compare, as I wasn't expecting such terrible results with a Pro1 CPL.

Mike

Would I have been better off posting this in the Lens or Accessories forum? I thought I would get plenty of opinions from other photographers on this subject!

Mike

Did you put the filter on over a UV filter or by itself?

No, it was on by itself. The double-edges I'm on about are most apparent towards the top of the first image, the thin well-lit branch on the second image and the branch running from the bottom left of the fourth image. Colours look as if they have bled all over the place too.

Take some pics without the CPL.
Perhaps it's the CPL.

Looks like camera shake to me.....there is no EXIF.
Did you have IS turned on? Was the shutter speed around an second or so.
IMO slow shutter speeds that aren't really slow are the worst possible. You won't see the ghost image from settling or mirror slap in an exposure that took 15 seconds but you might very well see it on one that you only exposed for a second. How about trying mirror lock up?

I was pretty sure that it wasn't camera shake due to the other anomalies, such as the blotchy colour, but I wasn't using mirror lock-up. As mentioned I had the camera on a tripod and was using a remote shutter release. Shutter speeds on my various bracketed shots ranged from around 1/5 second to just over a second.

I am wondering if it was the CPL because I was expecting L series quality images as I usually get with this lens. Maybe it's a coincidence that it was the first time I had the CPL on, but the image quality is terrible at 100%, so something has gone wrong. Maybe it's me!

Mike

Try again but up the ISO so you can use a faster shutter speed. Try also a longer exposure with mirror lockup. You should know after that.

What exactly are you trying to accomplish by using the CPL for this type of shot?

The most common uses for a CPL are to cut glare on water or in window reflections, and to make white clouds stand out against a blue sky.

http://en.wikipedia.or​g …cular_polarizer​#Polarizer

Yeah I thought a CP was used for sky and water shots...

???

People use them to cut reflections on leaves as well.

Thanks Poloman, I hadn't thought of what you said about slower but not really slow shutter speeds, so I'll be trying mirror lock-up. I had the ISO set to 100, but wouldn't have thought to raise it, so that's something else to bear in mind if the shutter speeds keep wanting to be in a troublesome area.

Dekalb and Dave, the CPL was left on from earlier in the day when I was out in the open, so I didn't fit it specifically for the wooded area, although I was expecting at the very least no detrimental effect and at the most, some help with the sky colour showing through the gaps in the trees. Adjusting the polarizer showed a noticeable increase in blue for the skies in the viewfinder, but the shutter speed dictated by the shade overexposed the sky areas anyway.

Mike

I suggest for testing to up the ISO and the shutter speed. Also find a place that has more light. This would only be to test.